


You Don't Hold a Candle

by letsallchant



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Profiler
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsallchant/pseuds/letsallchant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief conversation with Jack of All Trades deeply unsettles Eames.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Hold a Candle

"Oh, so you're a stalker _and_ a nursery rhyme aficionado? Be still my heart."

He quirked his lips in a way that made her feel uneasy, making the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up, kicking in her natural fight or flight instincts.

"You know, you're a beautiful woman, Alexandra. Look at you, so proud, loyal and sure of yourself – to a fault. But as you know, pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall," he said, acerbic tone carefully smoothing out every word and syllable.

Goren looked up from his notes, "Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud? _Sounds_ familiar..."

"You know your proverbs, detective."

Goren shrugged, "Well, I just know my garden variety serial killers. Quoting scripture is in the handbook, you know, right next to bed wetter and 'he seemed harmless'."

"Would that also be next authority issues and abusive mothers? You would know, wouldn't you Detective Goren? It's what makes you so good, so understanding.... so unique. You and I.....we're no altar boys. Are we?"

He ignored him, straightening the papers in his binder, flippantly and coolly apathetic as if he conversing with a run-of-the-mill snitch.

"You weren't just satisfied with murdering Dr. Waters, You wanted to drag her daughter down with you..... ...'among the oppressed' am I right?" Eames questioned, resting her hands against the table and leaning into his personal space.

"I didn't murder her, Alexandra. How could I? I needed her like I need air in my lungs and blood in my veins......you know how that feels, right Alexandra? To lose your other half? Actually, both of you know how that feels," he fixed his stare directly at Goren.

"It feels sorrowful, doesn't it? To know that there will never be another?"

Eames quickly glanced at Goren before starting in again.

"You know who else feels sorrowful?" she said, throwing 'sorrowful' out like a dirty word, "Chloe Waters." She shoved the picture of the young blond woman toward him.

He leaned forward, picking up the photo to get a closer look, lightly caressing the attractive smiling face that was photographed there in an intimate manner that was nearly obscene.

"Maybe we should call her up, you know? Invite her to our little pity party we're having. Come on, it will be fun!" Goren said, as he jauntily moved his chair next to him, "Though, you know she just might win this one - she might have all of us beat, you know, with losing her mother, and her fiance-"

"Leave her out of this," he said, pulling on his handcuffs.

"So concerned. So protective. I would say...like a father, but _no_. You're too jealous, too scorned for that to fit. You hate competition. Also, the way you were fingering that picture....well. I thought Detective Eames and I were going to have to leave the room on that one."

"You're reaching-"

“No, I'm onto something aren't I? And it's almost as if you've given up and thrown in the towel. You've gotten all sloppy on us haven't you? Samantha's dead – rendering all those years of toiling meaningless. Her daughter _won't even engage you_. You're a man alone, you've got nothing.”

They both waited for his reaction, expecting a bitter retort, a red face...anything. All they got was dead silence as he gazed at the pair of them.

“You simplify things, Detective."

* * *

Later on when Jack is released on faulty evidence, there's a jittery, yet familiar charge in Goren's aura.

"Well, he's not Nicole," Eames said, pondering for a minute over her takeout, "but you know, I think he might be even creepier - if that's possible."

"Maybe," he said after a stretch of silence.

"You might have a new white whale on your hands Ahab," she replied, glancing across at his hunched, contemplative form.

"Yeah. I don't know. I think my whale hunting days are over." His voice had that barely audible tone that was almost polite. She began to regret bringing up Nicole at all. She felt a feeling that verged between embarrassment and regret. Stabbing her thumb into her index finger in a gesture that was her habitual form of self-punishment, she continued on anyway: "So she's ruined you for all other murderers huh?"

He thought about this for a beat before finally saying it, "Maybe. I wouldn't put it that way. It's just that....I know how the story ends."

She sat back and nodded, her question confirmed. Later on she would lay sleepless in her bed, going over Jack's taunts and questions, what it meant for all of them, and of what it meant for life in general, specifically she and Bobby. She badly wants to dismiss them.  
   



End file.
